The importance of secure cloud

Cloud based solutions are getting more popular and have become the backbone of innovation across industries, including healthcare and pharma. As businesses scale, the data usage also grows, rapidly increasing secure cloud practices alongside. Their primary focus is on ensuring confidentiality, integrity, availability and compliance of sensitive health data.

At blueBriX, we understand these challenges and have built a platform with industry’s best available security practices to meet the specific needs of healthcare and pharma industries.

Why secure cloud practices matter?

Healthcare and pharma organisations handle highly sensitive data, including patient information, research and proprietary data. Secure cloud implementations help to safeguard the following aspects:

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Comprises of protecting patient, clinical data from unauthorized access or disclosure. This includes patient records, research data and proprietary information. 

Comprises of protecting patient, clinical data from unauthorized access or disclosure. This includes patient records, research data and proprietary information. 

Comprises of protecting patient, clinical data from unauthorized access or disclosure. This includes patient records, research data and proprietary information. 

Comprises of protecting patient, clinical data from unauthorized access or disclosure. This includes patient records, research data and proprietary information. 

How blueBriX manages secure cloud
for healthcare

blueBriX platform is built on top of a secure architecture designed to support the ever-evolving demands of healthcare, adhering to strict data protection standards.

Confidentiality Data integrity Availability Healthcare regulations

Encryption at rest and in transit

All data within the system is encrypted both in transit and at rest. For in-transit encryption, TLS secure all the traffic, while CA certificates handles the encryption process. At rest, data is protected using the AES-256 algorithm. Certain data that could reveal a user’s identity is stored in an encrypted format to prevent database administrators from viewing sensitive details; however, this information can be decrypted by the application when required. Additionally, some user data, such as passwords, are encrypted in a way that prevents even the application from decrypting it. 
 

Sensitive information, such as database credentials and third-party account details, is are securely stored in a secrets manager service. These secrets are rotated periodically to ensure continued security.

Access control

Users are granted access based on role-based access control (RBAC), with permissions assigned according to their specific roles. This ensures that only authorized persons have access to sensitive data. Multi-factor-authentication (MFA) is implemented to add an extra layer of security to prevent unauthorized access even if someone compromises the password

Data masking and tokenization

Data at rest is encrypted to ensure compliance with data protection regulations, with additional encryption applied at the encryption layer for enhanced security. Sensitive information, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI), is either masked or removed from system logs and audit logs to prevent unauthorized access. 

User passwords and secrets are securely encrypted and anonymized, making it impossible to reverse-engineer them. PII is typically masked within the application to protect user- privacy. 

PII and PHI cannot be accessed by database administrators as they are encrypted using AES-256 and stored in the db.  

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Confidentiality

We keep the health data confidential
implementing the below mechanisms.

Manage secure cloud image

Data Integrity

We use the following methods to ensure data integrity.

Audit logs

Users are granted access based on role-based access control (RBAC), with permissions assigned according to their specific roles, ensuring only authorised persons cal access the sensitive data. Multi-factor-authentication (MFA) is implemented to add an extra layer of security to prevent unauthorized access even if someone compromise the passwords

Version control

For files, records, apps, or other critical assets, we ensures integrity by applying version control  mechanisms. Any changes made to a document or record are tracked, logged and easily reversible if necessary. 

DB Transactions

We have developed on top of a microservices architecture, however we have ensured the database transactions are consistent and atomic, by implementing architectural patterns like SAGA. This will ensure that any update made to the system is either fully completed or fully rolled back, ensuring no partial or corrupted data remains. 

Redundant and failover mechanisms

The platform is cloud-agnostic and can be hosted in the cloud infrastructures like AWS, Google or Microsoft, on a multi-region, utilizing multi-region and Availability Zones to ensure that services remain availabilityle even in during a localized outages. This enables the data redundant in data centres and failover mechanisms to bring instant recovery if one region goes down.  This setup ensures data redundancy across data centers, while failover mechanisms enable instant recovery if one region experiences downtime.

Auto-scaling

The cluster is deployed in multiple nodes that are a part of auto-scaling groups spanning different availability zones. This ensures that the platform remains accessible across these zones, so that a failure in any one zone does not impact overall availability. The auto-scaling groups automatically adjust the number of instances based on server load, scaling up or down as needed.

Disaster recovery

Our strategy includes regular backups and geo-replication of data., tThe backups include the services, images and database replicas copied to different regions. In the event of a significant failure, these resources can be quickly restored to maintain application availability. The cluster backup is also maintained which can be easily restored. The service images are safe in the container registry.

99.9% SLA: The commitment to this uptime, wWe guarantees this uptime so that any organisation can rely on the blueBriX platform for their critical solutions.

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Availability

blueBrix is highly available, this is how we do ensure availability

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Healthcare regulations

We adhere to the healthcare regulations

HIPAA and GDPR

We align with the most stringent regulatory frameworks worldwide, and are fully compliant with HIPAA and GDPR. This includes comprehensive audit trails, encryption standards and access controls adhere to healthcare data. 

Audit and monitoring

Continuous auditing mechanisms are in place to track all interactions with the platform. Logs are stored securely, and any suspicious activity is flagged in real time for review. This is essential for meeting the audit requirements of regulatory frameworks like HIPAA and GDPR. 

ISO Certifications

We have developed on top of a microservices architecture, however we have ensured the database transactions are consistent and atomic, by implementing architectural patterns like SAGA. This will ensure that any update made to the system is either fully completed or fully rolled back, ensuring no partial or corrupted data remains. 

blueBriX architecture 

BlueBrix Architecture
Kubernetes for secure, scalable orchestration  Infrastructure as code (IaC) with terraform for consistency and security Monitoring and alerting with grafana and prometheus Secure CI/CD pipelines for continuous deployment Web application firewall (WAF)  Identity and access management (IAM) and security policies

Kubernetes-driven cloud scalability and security

We leverages cloud managed Kubernetes to manage the deployment and orchestration of containerized applications. This allows us to implement robust security and scalability measures like Pod level security, Api-gateway, service mesh, and as above mentioned auto scaling and high availability

API gateway & mTLS for end-to-end security

The Api-gateway are implemented with many policies that prevent unauthorized access to the cluster services. We have implemented service mesh with mTLS to secure communication between the microservices, which will ensures end-to-end encryption in the platform. 

Kubernetes for secure, scalable orchestration 

Infrastructure as code (IaC) with terraform for consistency and security

Terraform is used to manage the entire cloud infrastructure, this will bring multiple security and operational benefits.

Consistent security across reproducible environments

This will allow us to create reproducible environments with consistent security settings, from development to production the same configurations are being used and the misconfigurations and security vulnerabilities will be reduced. 

Secure CI/CD pipeline with IaC audits

The CI/CD pipeline is implemented with security audits on IaC, this will ensure all the updates are logged, versioned and tracked. 

Immutable and secure by design

It is not subject to change. 

Real-time monitoring with prometheus

Prometheus always collects the metrics from services running on the cluster, ensuring that all health and performance indicators are tracked in real-time. This allows us to detect and respond to potential security incidents or performance degradations before they impact users. 

Insightful metrics with Grafana dashboards

Grafana dashboards provide comprehensive views of critical metrics such as API request rates, error rates, and resource utilization. Security-specific dashboards track potential threats, such as unauthorized access attempts, anomalous traffic, or unusual resource spikes that could indicate a DDoS attack. 

Multi-layered alerting systems

We have implemented multi layered alerting systems like email, slack, SMS, IP phone and other notification tools to immediately notify our team of potential incidents. This ensures a rapid response to mitigate any security issues. 

Monitoring and alerting with grafana and prometheus

Effective monitoring is crucial for maintaining the security and health of the platform. blueBriX uses Prometheus for metrics collection and Grafana for visualization and alerting

Secure CI/CD pipelines for continuous deployment

At blueBriX, we follow a CI/CD pipeline for continuous integration and delivery, ensuring that all code and infrastructure updates are securely tested, validated, and deployed. 

Automated testing & vulnerability scanning

Every code change goes through a series of automated tests, including unit tests, integration tests, and security vulnerability scans using tools like Snyk, SonarQube, ZAP and BurpSuite. This ensures that potential vulnerabilities are caught early in the development cycle.  

Infrastructure as code (IaC) testing

Terraform configurations are automatically tested before they are applied to production environments. This ensures that any changes in infrastructure do not introduce security vulnerabilities misconfigurations. 

Secure deployment via EKS

Once code passes all tests, it is deployed to the EKS cluster via automated CI/CD pipelines, ensuring secure and seamless updates without manual intervention. This reduces the risk of human error during deployment. 

Container security

Our CI/CD process also ensures that all Docker containers are scanned for vulnerabilities before deployment. Images are stored in a private container registry, and only verified, signed images are allowed in production environments.

Least privilege access

Every user and service within the platform is granted only the minimum permissions necessary to perform their role. By following the principle of least privilege, we reduce the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive systems or data.

Automated access reviews

IAM policies are continuously reviewed and audited through automation. Any over-privileged access or anomalies are flagged and corrected immediately. 

API gateway security

For services that expose APIs, we use API Gateway integrated with OAuth 2.0 and JWT tokens to ensure secure authentication and authorization for all API requests. Rate limiting and throttling are applied to protect against DDoS attacks and abuse.

Identity and access management (IAM) and security policies

To control and monitor access to sensitive data and systems, we enforce strict Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies

Layered security: network firewalls in action

When a client makes a request to the platform, the request first hits the network firewalls, like AWS WAF. This layer checks with many rules configured in it like SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting or XSS, Cross-Site Request Forgery or CSRF, DDoS Attacks, rate limiting, OWASP 10, Compliance an d reporting, etc. 

Web application firewall (WAF)